Chapter Two
Dani
HOW COULD I HAVE MISSED IT?
How could I not know she was sick?
The last time we talked on the phone, she didn’t sound good. Her breathing was labored and she kept coughing, but she assured me she was fine, that travel fatigue had caught up to her and she was recovering from an upper respiratory infection.
She lied.
Why wouldn’t she have told me what was going on? I could’ve been there. I could’ve helped in some way. Taken her to treatments. Something. Anything.
I could’ve said goodbye.
The last text I sent her haunts my dreams. I should’ve driven straight from the airport to her house so I could put eyes on her. Instead, I waited for her to initiate the conversation about her schedule.
I went on with life as if we had all the time in the world. What a sick joke.
A loud horn rips me from my thoughts just in time to swerve out of the way of an oncoming truck. The steering wheel fights against my overcorrection as I make a sharp right over a curb in front of a gas station off the Alameda.
Ignoring the stares from people at the pumps, I throw my car in park and rest my head against the top of the steering wheel.
You’re okay. You’re fine. Everything’s fine.
A cruel laugh falls from my lips. That mantra usually drags me back from the edge of ruin, but now it’s dangling me off the side of the cliff with every intention of letting me fall.
Everything’s not fucking fine.
There’s a rap against my window and I prepare myself to put on a show for whatever stranger is inserting themselves in my business.
I would’ve taken a nosy stranger over seeing Micah standing outside. I wonder how much of that he saw.
Let’s get this over with.
I roll my window down at his silent instruction and wait.
“Move over.”
“Excuse me?” I ask.
“Move over. I’m driving.”
I let out a deep breath that does absolutely nothing to calm my nerves and let my head fall against the headrest. “I don’t need you to drive. Were you following me?”
“We’re going to the same place. Was I supposed to find an alternate route because you don’t wanna be in the same vicinity as me for some reason?”
For some reason. Ha. He makes it seem like I have some petty grudge against him. I don’t have a grudge at all; I’m just the only one of us with any sense. It’s pointless for us to build any sort of connection when history has shown what happens every time we go down that road.
I’m not in the habit of wasting my time.
“I don’t have a problem with you, Micah.”
“Right. Move over.”
“Micah. No.”
“Danielle. Yes.”
Oh, we’re pulling out the government now, I see.
“You almost crashed thirty seconds ago. Let’s be forreal.”
I wave him off. “I was distracted for a second, damn. I’m fine.
” I know I’m not fine. I don’t know how long it will take for anything to be fine again, but I know it will be.
I don’t have any other choice. Tanya was the main person in my life who made me feel okay in my skin.
Without her to push me out of my failure mindset, I would’ve given up on my modeling dreams before they had a chance to take off.
For all the bad and ugly that world brought me, it also gave me too much good to discard.
As encouraging as she was, she could also play hardball and she would have my ass if she thought I let her death make me give up on my own life.
Micah opens my door and stoops until he’s at my eye level. “I hate to break it to you, but this is gonna end with me getting my way this time. We don’t have to talk on the ride over, but please don’t make me stand around helpless to help someone else.”
The severity of his words and his pained expression take the wind out of my sails. On one knee in front of me, fists balled like he’s barely holding on, ready to beg me for salvation that I can’t give, he leaves me no choice but to unbuckle my seat belt and climb over the middle console.
After climbing in, he adjusts my seat and mirrors.
“What about your car?” I ask, looking back at his impeccably clean white Audi SQ8 parked right behind me, waiting for someone to come along and fuck with it.
“Not worried about it.” He locks eyes with me, tossing any follow-up question I might’ve had to the back of my mind, and pulls off.
Mr. Townsend’s office is as boring as I expect it to be. The walls are plain, his various degrees serving as the only decorations. His oak desk is traditional, neatly organized, and lacking anything worth taking a second look at.
As a matter of fact, the only note of color in this entire office is a pink rose preserved in a glass-covered vase sitting on the bookshelf behind him.
That had to be from Tanya. I highly doubt she’d work with this man without trying to add at least a little color to his space.
“How did she do it?” I ask, forsaking all pleasantries.
I feel Micah’s eyes on me, but I don’t look his way. My attention stays on Mr. Townsend, watching his every move for any signs of deception.
“How did she do what?”
I pull out my phone and open my texts with Tanya.
I navigate to our photos as quickly as possible to avoid rereading that final exchange once again.
Stretching my arm across his desk, I swipe through the numerous pictures Tanya sent me while supposedly on her travels.
There are pictures of her on the beaches of Italy, at Madame Tussauds in New York, at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, and so on.
“She told me she was traveling. She sent me all these pictures. Clearly that wasn’t true, so how did she do it?”
He stops watching my slideshow and adjusts his suit jacket.
“She did do some traveling when she was first diagnosed. But she also arranged a photoshoot to make it look like she was in all these places when her condition progressed. They were all places she’d been to before, so she’d be able to answer any questions you might ask. ”
He says it matter-of-factly, oblivious to how it flays me wide open that someone I treasured went to such lengths to hide her health from me.
Maybe he’s not oblivious. Maybe he just doesn’t care. I’m well aware that this man doesn’t deserve my judgment or my ire. He is only doing his job, after all, but someone has to hold this rage in my chest and it can’t be me.
“Why would she do that?”
“She didn’t want either of you to know about her diagnosis. She said it was important that you go on living your lives without seeing her like that.”
“Like a human?” I ask. No matter how hard I try, I can’t wrap my head around the fact that she would leave us without saying goodbye.
Yes, she was the textbook definition of fabulous, so I’m sure seeing her sick would’ve been a shock, but I would take that shock a million times just to give her one last hug.
Fuck. These beige ass walls are not going to see my tears.
“I suppose so,” Mr. Townsend says. His nonchalant tone makes my blood boil.
“Right. And you’re a lawyer, so of course you don’t mind perpetuating lies.”
He leans his weight against his desk, his gaze seething.
I match his energy and lean in as well. I feel the weight of Micah at my back, silently conveying to both Mr. Townsend and me that he’s on my side. I probably don’t deserve that from him, but I’ll take it.
“Let me be clear,” Mr. Townsend starts. “My priority was and still is Tanya. It was my duty to carry out her last wishes however she saw fit. You may not like it—and believe me, I understand why you wouldn’t—but that’s not my problem.”
We stare at each other until he looks away to grab a file off his desk. That should feel like a win, but instead it feels like he couldn’t be bothered to engage in my childish games.
“Let’s get started,” Mr. Townsend announces.
“Wait a minute,” I interrupt.
He pulls his eyes away from the file, seemingly ready for another insult to be hurled his way.
“Shouldn’t we wait for whoever else is coming?” I motion around Micah and myself to the otherwise empty office.
“No one else is coming, Ms. Jenkins.” He waits for me to take a seat before continuing. “Mrs. Holden left everything to the two of you.”
Micah and I share a look of disbelief. Tanya had other family and friends, causes that meant a lot to her. Why would she leave everything to us?
“That can’t be right,” Micah interjects.
“I wrote the will up for her, Mr. Wright. I assure you, it’s correct. There are some caveats, though.”
He hands over a letter that we grab in unison.
Dear Dani and Micah,
If you’re reading this, I’m dead.
I would apologize for the dramatics, but really, what were you expecting?
Now, I know the two of you well enough to know you’re beating yourselves up for being unaware of my illness. To that I say, get over yourselves. How could you know something I purposefully didn’t tell you?
I’m sorry for keeping it from you. Micah, you’re probably sitting there internalizing everything, wondering how you could’ve saved me. Dani, you’re probably burning with anger and taking it out on poor Victor. Stop that.
Trust me when I say, I did what I thought was best. Watching the life slowly fade from my eyes is a fate I could never put on you. I did it with my mother and some days I remember those final moments more than I remember her life. I don’t want that for you.
Truthfully, I wasn’t expecting the two of you.
You stormed into my life and completely decimated my carefully laid plans to be the aloof bombshell that everyone wanted to be around yet no one really knew.
I swear George sent you. The bastard had the audacity to make me a widow at the age of thirty-six, and over two decades later—instead of sending me a new man to occupy my golden years—he sent me two ambitious kids with tender hearts that sucked me in.
Dani, you showed up at the rec center with so much bravado. Anyone who even thought of stepping on your dreams of becoming a model felt your wrath. You had a laser focus that demanded attention and I couldn’t help but to give it to you.